Dead Last, Vol. 3

by Quaranta, Marc

  Nico was just sitting on the banister of the gazebo. He spoke with a couple of other people. They were laughing and joking. His laughing seemed silent. His smile was broken. I could see a lot of my own self in him. He’d done something horrible just like I had.

  “I got the call a few hours after it had happened. I was working and was unable to check my phone. By the time the police were able to get a hold of me, she was dead. If I had been able to pick the call up right away, I probably would have had time to get to the hospital and say goodbye to her. I never got to.”

  “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “We’ve all lost somebody. That is life. Did you lose anyone?”

  “My daughter. She was with my ex-wife at the time of the outbreak.”

  “Were you able to say goodbye?”

  “No.”

  He scoffed. “It’s very hard to hold on to one’s sanity when you don’t get to say goodbye to a loved one. I know that. I can’t tell you how many nights I wanted to drive to Nico’s house and kill him in his bed.”

  My head flipped to him as if that was the last thing I expected him to say.

  “I wanted him dead, Scott.” He paused. He nodded as if giving himself permission to continue. “But time went on. When District 7-1 came to be, I made sure Nico was in here. I made sure he was safe. I brought him here.”

  “Why? I mean, how could you save the man that killed your wife?”

  “Because he was a great friend to her. I know he never intended for that to happen. It was a horrific accident, but Nico was one of the most important people in my wife’s life. I knew she’d want me to save him.”

  He gunned the golf cart again without telling me to brace myself. My head snapped back and the wind was hitting me in the face all over again. I could feel goosebumps growing on my arm.

  “I wanted to kill Nico every night for what he did to my wife. I don’t know what you have done, Scott, but it sounds like your friends wouldn’t mind if you were dead. Maybe some of them would even want to kill you themselves?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “But they will come around. The worst monsters can come back from the darkest places.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There is an apartment above the little bar we have in town.” He cut me off and changed the subject. “It’s a little dusty. Needs a good cleaning. The bar uses the place as storage for drinks and dry food, but we can make some room and you can stay there for now.”

  “Really? That would be great.”

  “I’m glad to help. I’ll show it to you now,” he said.

  He sped the cart up and we headed toward the little shops and stores. On our drive, I saw so many people that lived in District 7-1. I didn’t know any of them. They didn’t know me. I was going to try my best to regain the trust of my old group, but as I saw all of the new people, I felt hope that I was going to be okay. Nobody from District 7-1 knew me.

  6

  Kurt Elkins

  W e were dying. The sun was directly overhead and beating down on to the tops of our heads. My hair felt like a warm towel that had been left in the sun all day after an afternoon at the pool.

  It was a few hours into our walk. Reggie didn’t make it long. Frank had been carrying him for about the last 10 miles. That’s just an exaggeration, though. I didn’t know how many miles he’d been carrying him. I didn’t know how many we’d walked.

  Bryce was being quiet. The last time I remember him saying anything was a few hours back after we’d escaped District 7-1. He was telling us to leave him. He’d given up. Without Kylie, I think he felt like he no longer had a purpose to survive. I had promised myself that I was going to get him back to her. The idea of these two kids having a Romeo and Juliet love was a little nuts, but in this world, we had to hold on tight to anything we cared about. Even if that love was over-the-top.

  Thinking about Bryce, though, reminded me of the eerie nonsense that he shouted back in the woods.

  “Zach,” I called. He was only a few steps ahead of me. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah,” he said uninterested.

  “What was Bryce talking about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Back in the woods. After we got away. He was screaming at you.”

  “Oh, you mean the ‘murder’ thing.”

  That’s exactly what I meant. “Why’d he call you that?”

  “It’s a long story,” Zack said.

  “What’s the short version?” I wiped the sweat off of my lips.

  “I killed my entire family.” He looked back at me smugly.

  “Okay.” I walked a few steps to wrap my head around that and thought about all the stuff that I had to do since the outbreak. Nothing was black and white anymore. It wasn’t even grey. It was red. Life was blood red. I didn’t overreact to his statement. I just let it settle.

  We were coming up to a small-town shopping center. There were enough stores up ahead that there had to be something left that we could eat or salvage for later. The sun was beating down and I could truly have used something to drink, but if nobody else was going to stop, maybe it’d be best to keep moving.

  We were still a few minutes from even reaching the shopping center, though, and I couldn’t just let what he said go.

  “Yeah, Zach, I’m going to need the long version,” I said.

  “What?” Zach slowed down until I was next to him. He looked at me. His eyes squinting. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” As if a follow-up question to his confession of murdering his family was strange.

  “When I got to my family’s house, my family was getting sick.” He was annoyed with me, but I didn’t care. He was going to tell me everything. “A few of my aunts had already turned. I had to put them down. Burned them in the backyard. It took ten days for Bryce and me to get to the farm. Kylie made me promise to pick him up. I don’t break my promises. Not to her.”

  I could tell he was having a tough time with the timeline of events. They seemed out of order as he spoke. Or he had no real interest in sharing these moments with me and was spouting out whatever he remembered.

  “But there were no bites. When they turned. At that moment, I realized that the ones that were dying, even from being sick, were turning. So, I was going to get Kylie and Bryce out of there. We had a better chance making it on our own than in that cesspool.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was referring to his own family like that, but I still was.

  “On the morning we were leaving, I made a pretty drastic decision,” he continued. “I put Kylie and Bryce in the car and gathered everyone in the living room.”

  He took more time with his words. This was the part I could tell was bothering him to talk about. He had no problem remembering this part of the story or how it happened.

  “Everyone had been getting sick. My mom. Dad. Cousins. They were all getting fevers. I stabbed my dad in the chest while we were in the kitchen.” He read the reaction on my face. He had no reaction on his.

  “The last thing I ever said to my mom was a lie before I shot her in the head. I couldn’t stand to see any more of my family as one of those fucking things. I gunned them all down in the living room. And then I left.”

  Again, we walked in silence. Zach’s story cleared my head. It caused me to stop thinking about every little thing that was going wrong in our lives. Things were so bad, but for the moment, all I was concerned about was the pain in my feet from walking so much.

  “I’m sorry you had to do that,” I said to him as I slapped him on the back.

  “Kurt,” Frank said. He walked up to us quite quickly. He didn’t have Reggie. Bryce instead was still up ahead standing with Reggie.

  “What is it?”

  “Reggie needs something to eat.”

  Thank God. We walked to one of the smaller stores. It was pretty rundown, but I could tell it was an old pharmacy. They had to have something in there that we could eat. I’d settle for
an old box of dried raisins if there was any.

  Zach and I checked the pharmacy for any stragglers. We looked up and down each aisle, underneath the shelves, and in the back rooms. The place was empty.

  “Don’t you go too far,” Frank told Reggie. “But there is a lot of stuff in here. Go find something you like.”

  Reggie took off like a kid in a candy store. Actually, he was literally that as he ran down the aisle that was labeled “candy.” The place was old and beat up, but nobody had come inside and taken anything. The shelves were quite full.

  “Kurt, I need to talk to you,” Frank said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Once we gather up enough food, Reggie and I are going to be on our way.”

  “Frank, don’t start this again. Come on, man. You can’t be serious.”

  “I am serious. I think our paths have been crossed long enough.”

  “Frank, if this is about Cameron— “

  “No. I don’t hold you responsible for that, but the fact is that I just don’t want any more trouble for my boy. We’re going back to Indy to what? Get an army? And then we’re just going to go back and go to war with a town of who knows how many people? This isn’t for us. Not anymore. I can’t keep subjecting Reggie to this life.”

  “Frank, we are not the bad people. There are much worse people out there,” I implied.

  “And we’re going to stay clear of those people, too. We’re gonna stay away from all people. At least, until Reggie gets a little older. Until then, it’s just got to be us. To keep him safe.”

  “I know I can’t stop you but— “

  “No. You can’t.” He reached out his hand. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me and my boy, Kurt. You’re a good man. I will pray for you and your family every night.”

  “Thank you.” I shook his hand.

  “I hope you get back— “

  AHHHH

  Reggie screamed from the back. By instinct, I released Frank’s hand and sprinted to the scream instead of letting Frank go first to check on his boy. I flung the door open and found Reggie was just fine.

  I stepped to the side and let Frank come in. Zach and Bryce were close behind. Reggie was standing over by the back window and looking out.

  “Reggie, what are you doing?” Frank’s voice faded. He looked out the window and then grabbed Reggie and pulled him back.

  I stepped closer and saw four stragglers standing outside. Reggie’s scream had garnered their attention. They were walking right toward us. Their moans were groggy. As if they were starving.

  “They know we’re in here,” I said.

  I could hear Zach’s gun being pulled from the harness. I looked back to see him already out of the room. I carefully stepped around Frank and Reggie and then darted by Bryce to stop Zach.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “I’m going to kill those things,” he said still walking.

  “Will you just wait a minute?”

  “What? Getting soft for these things now?”

  “No.” Zach finally stopped walking. “Your gun is going to attract other ones. It needs to be quiet.”

  “Their moaning is going to attract others.”

  “Then let’s take care of them. The right way.” I grabbed my knife and waited until Zach put his gun away and grabbed his knife.

  We walked out the front door, carefully so that the bell didn’t ring. We didn’t want to alert the stragglers. We kept close to the building as we turned the corner.

  “Holy shit!” Zach screamed.

  On the other side of the building, there were several dozen stragglers moving toward us in a heard. There were fifty, sixty of them and they already knew we were there.

  “Run. Run!” I shouted. We turned back around the corner and sprinted to the front doors. Bryce was coming outside to help us, I think, but we screamed at him to turn back.

  “Run, idiot!” Zach shouted as we ran by him. We got to the door. Zach pushed me in and then called to Bryce again.

  He watched us and then looked back in curiosity. A straggler appeared around the corner. And then another one, and another one, and another one, until there were too many to count. Bryce screamed and then finally ran back inside.

  “Go! Go!” Zach pushed Bryce in and then closed the door behind him. “There are no locks. There are no locks! Find something.”

  I looked around the store to find something, but there wasn’t anything to push into the door to stop it from opening.

  “Look out,” I said.

  Zach turned back to the door and a straggler was pushing it open. Zach jumped forward and pushed the door back knocking the straggler to the floor. His head was crushed under the feet of another three stragglers that all started pushing at the door.

  After another five seconds, there were too many of them. The force had Zach’s feet sliding backward and then finally the glass shattered.

  “Fuck!” Zach yelled.

  “Come on, come on!” I waved him over.

  We threw as much debris as we could in front of them. I grabbed Bryce and made him help me push an entire shelving section over to slow them down. We turned and ran into the back room.

  “Close the door.”

  This door had a lock, but it wasn’t going to keep that many stragglers out.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  There were still four stragglers banging on the window trying to get in. In the time we’d been out front, they’d already cracked the glass. Reggie was starting to cry. This wasn’t the time to prove to Frank that he needed us around.

  Zach pulled out his gun. He looked at me for approval.

  “Still gonna attract others?” He mocked.

  Frank grabbed Reggie and pulled him back.

  “Shut the fuck up and shoot.”

  Zach shot at the glass and at the stragglers. The glass fell like sharp raindrops and the bullets impaled their skulls. Zach was the first to jump out of the window and the rest of us followed. There were a few stragglers that had made it around the building, but they were far enough away that we didn’t worry about them. We ran the opposite way and back toward the highway to lead us up to Indy.

  We’d walked for another hour before stopping before a small graveyard of cars. The strength of the sun had exhausted our bodies. We weren’t able to take much from the pharmacy but managed to grab some food and a little bit of water.

  “At this rate, it’s going to take forever for us to get back,” Zach said. He didn’t seem tired. He still felt so inhuman to me. He was machine-like. A cyborg sent from the future that didn’t feel human emotion, he didn’t tire like anyone I’d ever met before.

  “If we don’t rest, we’re going to collapse in the middle of the road,” I said.

  “Maybe you will,” he retorted.

  “Right.” There was no point in trying to convince him that he would grow tired. He stopped walking while Bryce and I chugged our water so that was a win for me. I took what I could get with him.

  “I never understood this,” Zach said starring down the road.

  “What?”

  “This.” He pointed to all the cars focusing on the ones that displayed the most damage. “How is it that there are junkyards like this randomly dropped in the middle of a highway? People just get out of their cars and decide walking was better exercise?”

  “Maybe they had no choice,” I responded after pouring warm water on my face. It only blocked the sun’s heat for a moment.

  “You mean every car ran out of gas at this exact point? Every car?”

  “No.”

  Zach’s eyes tightened. He wanted more of an answer for me. I didn’t have one, but I did have evidence to my point. I pointed to the car that he was leaning on gingerly.

  Zach turned around and was startled to see a straggler inside the back seat of the red Honda Accord. He backed up like the car had just electrocuted him. His hand jerked to his gun, but he never pulled it out.

>   He laughed. The kind of laugh that originated from deep, down inside his belly. It wasn’t the kind of chuckle laugh I used to force out when Haylea told me a bad joke. It was organic laughter.

  And we needed that.

  I began to laugh along with him. It was really the only joy in our lives. It was the only way to give us a break from the hell we were in and bond over something besides death. I playfully pushed Zach the way two friends would when one of them said something stupid to a pretty girl.

  Bryce walked away from us. He did not share in our laughter. And I honestly think that he hadn’t been in as dark a place as we had. This wasn’t joyful laughter. It was horror laughter. We were barely able to pull ourselves out of the grave we’d been hiding in, but not able to get all the way out. We were just reaching the surface, for a moment, to enjoy the fresh air.

  It faded slowly back into the ground. And at that moment, we realized how good of a moment that was but just like every good moment nowadays, they were short-lived.

  “What do we do?” Zach asked.

  “It’s not going anywhere. Just leave it,” I said.

  “It. Now you’re sounding like me,” Zach joked with a smile.

  “That thing has probably scared people away from this car.”

  “Yeah,” he said with no idea where I was going.

  “I bet it has gas. At least enough to take us a few hours. Maybe.”

  “Yeah,” he said again. “Maybe.”

  “Doorman or knifeman?”

  “Eh, I’ll take doorman. Let’s see what you got.”

  He put his hand on the car and tapped at the glass to regain the straggler’s attention. The damn thing started to chomp down as if it could eat Zach’s hand through the glass. It smeared nasty slime and mucus all over the glass.

  I pulled my knife out and stood a step away from the car and readied myself for a quick kill. Open the door, kill the straggler, start the car, and then we would be headed off back to Indy. It was a simple plan. It was going to work.